The Billy Club Bastard Case Files: The Case of the Bat and the Buzzard, Part 1 of 2

Mickey Malloy has received word that one of the Office’s most-wanted, a mercenary pilot known to have killed officials, is about to get flipped on. It’s not a chance he can pass up. But is it ever as easy as simply asking the right questions? Not when Mickey, or the Bastard, is involved.

Crazy, Crazy, Crazy, All the Time is available as a Kindle ebook, in paperback, and as a DRM-free ebook.

The Case of the Bat and the Buzzard is the six and final story in Crazy, Crazy, Crazy, All the Time, the second anthology in The Billy Club Bastard Case Files series. It should be read after The Case of the Electrocuted Gangsters.

Content warnings: Mild Swearing, Violence, Gun Violence, Death, Tobacco Use

TUESDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 15, 1942
ATLANTIC GREYHOUND BUS TERMINAL
SAVANNAH, GEORGIA

“Just so you know, I don't make it habit to meet strange men at the bus station,” Helena Handbasket said. The leggy blonde was sitting on the bench across from Mickey Malloy, tan and freckled, with a lot of leg showing out from under her knee-length brown duster. Enough leg to distract, while the jacket covered up what could have been a half-dozen heaters on her.

“You know, I'm not exactly a stranger,” Mick said.

“I meet a lot of jakes who remember me better than I do them,” Helena chuckled. “Now where'd you have the pleasure, hon?”

“Well, we haven't exactly met,” Mick told her. “I've see you fly.”

“Oh really?” she asked. Her eyes lit up. “Where at?”

“Lakeland.”

“Lakeland, Florida, right. Back in thirty-two, wasn't it?” she asked.

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Mick said. “Good memory.”

“I've flown from one end of this country to the other and I remember every show. So you're a fan, then?”

Mick looked around at the people milling around the bus station. So one seemed to give two shits about either of them.

“I was working the barricade.”

“I don't talk to cops,” Helena snickered. She produced a compact and began checking her lipstick. She was forty-five at this point, but she was trying to look much younger. A life in showbiz requires that, Mick figured. She had a thousand-dollar smile, but her eyes always stayed mean. She glanced up at Mick like she was surprised he was still sitting there: “Why don't you kick rocks, gumshoe?”

“I'm not a cop. And you called us.”

“For someone who ain't a cop, you sure are quackin' and flappin', pal,” Helena said. “I called the F.B.I., not some two-bit gorilla in a cheap suit.”

“And Hoover sent me, his favorite slush bucket. So let's get down to business: from what I hear, you have something to say about Batty Masterson.”

“'Oh, you bet I do,” Helena snapped.

“So what do you want for it?” Mick asked.

“All I want is a dangerous man out of the skies,” she replied.

“I don't buy it,” Mick said.

“You don't have to. I'm offering it for free.”

Mick studied her for a moment. She was a player. There'd be a catch.

“I know his real name,” she offered. “And where he lives.”

“And how do you figure out something that none of my people could dig up?”

“Well, sleeping with the man for three years might have had something to do with it.”

“Huh,” Mick considered. “Yeah, that'll do it.”

“I met him on the airshow circuit, in case you were wondering. That's where he does his recruiting, taking daredevils and barnstormers and turning them into own little flying army.”

“I don't blame him, you were pretty good,” Mick recalled.

“'Pretty good?' I was the best, G-man,” Helena snapped. She took a golden cigarette case out of her pocket and lit one up, then snapped the case shut before Mick could bum one.

“So what happened?”

“Bat was all about the money,” she replied, blowing smoke in Mick's face while she spoke. “I refused to work for fascists, so he left me behind.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that. And I wasn't the only one, but I was the loudest.”

“So what, you're gonna flip on him for revenge?” Mick asked.

“What not? The smarmy bastard took my whole world away from me,” she said. She took a long drag on her cigarette. “I know what he did in Africa. You're right to lock him up.”

“So what's the big secret? Who is he?” Mick asked. This Masterson character had to be big, he was financing his own air fleet.

“He's a preening turd,” Helena said with a smirk. She leaned back in her seat so a family could shuffle past. She waved at a little girl dragging her doll.

“That I already knew,” Mick said. Batty Masterson was the founder and lead ace in the mercenary fighter squadron-for-hire, the Black Wings. He styled himself the Gentleman Airman, though mowing down Commonwealth soldiers while on Mussolini's payroll made him anything but. Still, neither Hoover nor the Office had any idea where that nut had come from.

“You're already halfway there,” she quipped. “But you want the real measure of a person, you got to know who they owe money to.”

Mick understood that more than most.

“Bat, well he got all his gear on credit from the Chrome Broker,” she continued. She paused like she wanted to see his reaction, but Mick didn't know that name. “You want to build up your own collection of fully-armed military fighters overnight, who else would you talk to you?”

“Uh-huh, yeah. And how do I get in contact with him?”

“Ratting on my ex might get me shot, G-man, but ratting on the Chrome Broker will get me chopped into chili. If you don't know him already, I'm not making introductions. You're more hopeless than I took you for.”

“I already know all kinds of thing, Miss Fulch,” Mick pointed out. Using her real name got Helena's attention and earned him a death stare. He smirked and added: “Or do you go by Missus Plett, these days?”

“That was annulled,” she snapped.

“Not in the great state of Oklahoma, it wasn't,” Mick said.

“Well you seem perfectly happy to dig up ancient history on your own,” she hissed. Helena Handbasket, also known as Helen Agnes Fulch, also known as Helen Fulch Plett, got antsy being called on her shit.

“I don't have time for games,” Mick grunted.

Helena turned her false smile back on him, but only for a second. It melted away like ice cream in August. She went silent, perked up in her chair, head cocked to the side like she was trying to remember a half-heard tune.

“You're right about that one, G-man,” she said after a moment. “You got a rod?”

The buzz of an airplane engine quickly overwhelmed the bustle of the bus station. The riders milling around them went silent as the drone grew louder and louder.

“They found me,” she yelled over the suddenly deafening drone. “They're coming in!”

“They wouldn't,” Mick started, but the shriek of an incoming fighter plane told him they would.

“I'm high-tailin' it!” Helena shouted, then bolted for the door. Her movement set off the mesmerized crowd and everyone flipped a switch. What had been a clear lane between her and the exit turned into a riot. Mick shoved his way after her, using brute strength to fling panicked people aside. She was smaller and could slip between 'em, but an icebreaker beats and ice skater every time. Mick caught up to her and grabbed her by the wrist.

“Hands to yourself!” she snarled. She spun and jabbed Mick in the gut with a short tube before she realized it was him. Every bone in his body locked up as a jolt of electricity coursed through him. His jaw clenched and he fell to a knee. A look of surprise flashed across her face, and she pocketed her weapon and knelt next to him, saying: “You can't just grab a lady like that, G-man.”

“What are you doing?” he gasped, trying to regain control of his spasming limbs.

“Getting out of here, and you should, too,” she yelled over the drone. “I figured Bat was just letting off hot air when I left him, but he wants me dead.”

“Stay in cover,” Mick grunted. He knew how the Black Wings dealt with targets in the open, he'd read the autopsies.

“He's not strafing downtown Savannah,” Helena said. “He's sending a sled.”

“A what?” Mick asked. The plane's roar was shaking the whole bus station. Just when it seemed like it was about the crash land in their laps, it peeled back. The fighter roared up and away.

Before Mick could figure out exactly what was happening, a gray container, wide as a milk truck but shaped like a torpedo and covered in fins, burst through the station's front doors. Glass and brick pelted the people who'd gotten too close to the exit. The huge thing slid through the lobby, kicking up tile by the ton and sending whole rows of benches tumbling over one another like an upholstered tidal wave. Mick and Helena scrambled to get out of its way. It ground to a halt lodged in the ticketing counter.

“That's a sled. Time to go!” Helena shouted.

“Is it a bomb?” Mick asked, shouting as loud as he could over the crowd.

“Nope!” Helena yelled. She was on the move, following the fresh trench the thing had left, right on out the door. Mick stood till, unsure whether he should chase her down, secure the weird thing, or start helping the injured passengers. The creak of a metal hinge and the hiss of hydraulics made his mind up for him.

Four people emerged from the sled's open side. They were done up in gloves and leathers and scarves, with fur-lined flight caps, oxygen masks, and googles topping off their strange wardrobes. They looked ready to go on a high-altitude bombing run. Each carried a pack as large as a parachute and a gleaming Thompson.

“There she goes!” one shouted, a woman with a Midwestern accent, pointing to where the front door had just been. Helena was picking her way through the rubble on her way out.

“You go, I'll scrap it!” another one, a man, yelled. Three of them took off after her, ignoring the chaos around them, while the last stayed behind, fiddling with some mechanism inside the sled. Past him, Mick could see four seats, webbed with straps and belts and springs.

Mick fumbled for his revolver. He couldn't let them blow up whatever this thing was in the middle of a bus station. His snub-nose Colt Detective Special looked pretty puny next to guy with an air-dropped land torpedo and a Tommy gun, but it was the best he could do on short notice. Once the three chasing Helena were clear, Mick snuck up behind the stranger while he worked.

“Hey buddy, why don't you stop right there,” Mick advised. The man gave him a once-over over his shoulder.

“Just a second, almost done here,” he said.

“I mean it, hands off the bomb,” Mick yelled.

“Bomb?” the man chuckled. He flipped one last switch and then stood up and raised his hands. The entire sled shifted colors, from gray to black to brown, and its surface began crackling like someone walking across broken glass. It shifted and contorted and its skin began to peel. The sled was rusting before Mick's eyes.

Gunfire rattled outside.

“What?” he asked. His his attention waved just long enough for the man to catch him upside the head with a gloved fist. Mick hit the ground just as the sled collapsed in on itself. Every metal element in it had been eaten through in seconds. Red dust blossomed from its settling carcass.

The man in the goggles kicked Mick's pistol across the floor and under a pile of displaced bench seats.

“We're almost out of here, buddy, don't do anything stupider than that,” he advised. He gave Mick a thumb's up and dashed around him, trying to catch up with his comrades and join in the firefight outside.

“I'll show you stupid,” Mick muttered. He heaved himself off the floor, snatched up a loose bench, and sent it tumbling after the running man. It caught the back of his knees and sent him sprawling. Mick clomped over and bounced his head of the ground a couple times, then borrowed his Thompson. The guy had enough marbles left to mumble some nonsense, so Mick cuffed his left hand to his right ankle.

“Good luck giving anyone else a cheap shot done up like that,” Mick told the newly pretzeled man as he patted him down. The guy didn't have a wallet on him, just a backup piece and a thick brass challenge coin. He pocketed both and made his way out of the spontaneously-renovated entrance.

Past the sled-trenched road, the screaming civilians, the busted water plug shooting upward like a geyser, and the crashed cars, Helena was pinned behind a bullet-puckered bus. The three black-clad shooters covered each other as they advanced. Helena didn't have time to shoot back. Lead skipped past her head. She was seconds away from getting flanked.

She needed time, which is the one thing the shooters didn't have. Local cops would be on the scene in a few minutes at the most.

“Hey, dumbasses!” Mick roared. He brought the Thompson up and fired it into the asphalt around the advancing shooters. They scrambled for cover, communicating in clipped shorthand and quick hand signals. Mick ducked behind a crashed taxi.

“What are you doing?” the dazed driver asked. His nose was broken, having crunched it against the steering wheel when he plowed into the street light.

The shooters didn't care that a civilian was in the line of fire. They opened up on Mick without hesitation.

“Get out of there!” Mick grunted. He ducked low, wrenched the passenger door open, and hauled the confused cabbie out onto the curb. Glass shattered and rain down on them. Mick slapped the man's bloody face, shocking a little sense into him, saying: “Stay down!”

“Hey Lourdes!” Helena shouted. She popped out from behind the bus and squeezed off a shot from a little derringer. The leather-clad woman caught a round in her thigh and dropped to ground.

“Go, we got this!” one of the other shooters called. Lourdes ripped her scarf off and tied it tight over her wound, then pulled a short cord attached to her pack. A balloon burst out of her back, inflating as it rocketed skyward.

“See you soon, Helena!” Lourdes called. She blew Helena a kiss through her oxygen mask, then went limp as the line between her and the balloon went taut. It was some kind of anti-parachute and it ripped her off the ground like she was a sheet of wet newspaper. Then she was gone.

“Good riddance!” Helena called after her, waving goodbye. Another salvo from the two remaining men dropped her back. The pair signaled each other and advanced on her through the broken hydrant's downpour. What they forgot about was Mickey Malloy.

Mick charged in like a rhinoceros. He hit the second shooter full speed, knocking him into the roaring geyser. The torrent caught him and threw him twenty feet into the air. He smacked down on the sidewalk on the other side of the street like a bad poker hand.

The other shooter didn't realize his buddy was gone until Mick had buried a fist in his kidney. He doubled over but recovered quicker than Mick had anticipated. Water splashed in Mickey's face, followed by the shooter's elbow. He stumbled back, tripping over a chunk of loose asphalt. He landed in three inches of water. When he looked up, he had a sub machine-gun in his face.

Another soaked figure appeared behind the furious gunman.

“Bye, Chuck,” Helena whispered into the man’s ear. She reached over his shoulder and grabbed the cord hanging there.

“Wait, no!” he yelled, but she yanked the ripcord and danced away. Chuck barely had a second to pucker up before the balloon tore him off the ground. His Thompson slipped out of his grip.

“You're letting him go?” Mick blubbered, wiping the water off his face.

“Letting him go? Why don't you scoot back a bit, flatfoot,” she said. She shoved aside the blonde locks plastered across her face, then stepped back and aimed her little pistol skyward. She squeezed off one round.

High above, the blue balloon popped. Mick rolled to the side in time for Chuck to impact the pavement where he'd just been sitting. Blood-reddened water splashed over him.

“Jesus!” Mick yelped. “What the Hell?”

“Chuck was a drunk who hit his kid,” Helena said. She holstered her pistol and squeezed her hair out. “Besides, you still got Pep and Skink.”

“What is a 'Pep and Skink?'” Mick demanded.

“The wet one on that sidewalk and the other one inside,” she said. “Pep's going to be fun. He'll get the shakes soon if you don't find him any go pills. Skink might not talk at first, but he thinks with his stomach. Wait him out.”

“I ain't starving anybody,” Mick growled. “So how about you drop that gun and answer so more of my questions?”

“That's not really jiving for me,” she replied with a shrug. The wail of incoming fire trucks and police cars echoed up the ravaged street. She began to walk away. “And that's my cue.”

“Hey, you're not going anywhere,” Mick said. He picked up a discarded Tommy gun and aimed it at her back. Water sloshed in its breach and dribbled out of its barrel.

“You won't let Skink skip a few hoagies but you'd shoot a woman in the back?” she asked over her shoulder. She stepped up onto the curb, out of the splashing water.

“I'm multi-faceted, what can I say?” Mick grunted.

“I like that,” Helena said. She flashed Mick that smile. “I'll tell you what. Bat's real name is Camden Curtain, I'm sure you recognize it. He flies out of an airfield that his family bought under a shell corporation. You can put the rest together. Ta-ta, G-man.”

“You can't just walk away from this!” Mick shouted, waving his arms at the chaos around them.

“Watch me,” she said. Her smile was real this time, which chilled Mick to the bone.

“Wait - !” Mick started, but she spun and began heel-toeing away. She tossed a small silver device over her shoulder. Electricity crackled out of it. Mick shook his head. “Shit.”

It splashed into the puddle he was sitting in. Lighting coursed up through him, arching his back and locking all of his joints into place. He clenched his teeth and black and red flashed across his vision.

It took a second for the thing to burn out, but Mickey couldn't move again until the firemen put him on a stretcher half-an-hour later.

SATURDAY AFTERNOON, MAY 3, 1941
STADIO PRINCIPE AMEDEO, KOLFE KERANIO
ADDIS ABABA, SCIOA, AFRICA ORIENTALE ITALIANA

Colonel Sir Doctor Alistair Halistone, III heard the planes before he saw them.

“Incoming!” he shouted, dropping flat to the pitch and dragging Doctor Ifa Abebe down with him. A flurry of black-painted fighters roared overhead, weaving between Addis Ababa's low buildings.

Edgard Neff raised his anti-tank rifle, tracking the last plane in the squadron through its scope. They whipped overhead at full speed and were gone as suddenly as they had arrived.

“American,” he grunted around a cigarette.

“Yes, P-51 Mustangs,” Julian Lin agreed. He was sweating so badly that his prosthetic tin nose and cheek slid off his face when he looked back down. The other officials pretended not to notice as he tightened the strap that held them in place.

“Ain't no Americans in this push,” Japhet Moore noted. His thick red beard covered his grimace as he watched the horizon for the planes to return.

“None our side, at least,” the Colonel said. He stood and brushed the grass and dirt off his khaki riding pants. “What were the markings on their wings, Edgard?”

“Skeleton wings,” he said. He used his massive rifle as a brace and pushed himself up from the grass. He brushed clinging dirt from his stained undershirt and hairy arms, then mopped the sweat clinging to his bare scalp and wiped it off on his pants.

“Skeletons on the wings?” Moore asked.

“No, wings that are like skeletons,” Neff said.

“So a couple of naked bones?” Lin wondered.

“No, there are feathers,” Neff told him, growing annoyed.

“Bones and feathers, I'm not familiar with this unit,” Teru Otello considered. She was fidgeting with her instruments, trying to juggle her oscillscopes and transponders with her shotgun. She swore at the shifting load in both of her native tongues, Amahric and Italian.

“The feathers were bones,” Neff snapped.

“What? Well that don't make a lick of sense,” Moore said.

“Yes,” Neff agreed. He deflated a little, like talking was a great strain for him. He puffed his cigarette and stalked ahead.

“Up you go, doctor,” the Colonel said, he took Abebe's hand and hauled him to his feet.

“Thank you, doctor,” Abebe said. He looked around, wary of the empty football stadium around them. “Where is everyone?”

“Cunningham and Wingate have not made their advance a secret,” the Colonel told him. “The hope is that as many civilians as possible will self-evacuate before they take the city. It is my understanding that the Italians are planning to retreat before our forces arrive in two days' time.”

“There are still Italians here, then?” Abebe asked.

“We hope to catch them before they can take or destroy vital intelligence,” the Colonel said. “I have been briefed that their alternative sciences division has a laboratory here.”

“They are studying electromagnetic radiation manipulation, sir,” Teru specified, “If our intelligence is accurate. Sir.”

“Thank you,” the Colonel said. “Now you see, Doctor Abebe, I have fought war from one end of this Earth to the other, and I haven't the foggiest about what that could mean as a soldier. I am terrified to find out.”

“That is the SIM's rat's nest right there, sir,” Lin reported. A squat concrete building loomed over the visitor stands, emblazoned with Mussolini's grimacing face thirty feet tall. The Colonel shuddered at the sight of it. Normally, neither il Duce or the SIM, Italy's Military Information Service, were enough to rattle the Colonel. This administration building, however, was held by their secret branch, one inspired by Germany's Department 3: the Methodical Warfare Division. They put him on edge. They were the ones with the supercharged tanks, the air-igniting bombs, and the death waves transmitted by radio. They were who he was there for.

“I see it, official,” he confirmed. “Edgard, what do you see?”

Neff surveyed the building through his sniper scope.

“There is a sniper on the top floor,” he reported. “Two-man team with Carcano rifles. We are outside their effective range by several hundred yards. They are not hurrying, they do not see us yet. On lower floors, there are men and women moving quickly, packing boxes.”

“Teru, can you confirm that this is our target?” the Colonel asked.

Teru adjusted her her oscilloscope, gave a frustrated grunt, then smacked it. Its indicators lit up. She swept its antennae to the left and right, eliciting bigger jumps in the readings whenever it was directed at the SIM building.

“Can confirm, sir. Whatever they were doing there, they're still doing it,” she said.

“Stay vigilant, officials,” the Colonel replied. “J. and J., on point. We exit through the stadium gates, keep our approach quiet.”

“Won't let the simmies catch a clue, sir,” Lin said. He removed his tin nose and cheek and pocketed them. His scars were deep, and his nose was nothing but a bisected hole in his face. He tied his bandanna over his face and started ahead. The rumors that the Italians were still experimenting with aerosolized chemical weapons were unfounded, but those who had experienced gas attacks in the last war, like Lin, were wary of whispers. The treated fabric that the Office had provided would filter out some of the most vile concoctions. Anything that could get through would kill him in other ways before he had to worry about breathing it in.

When they were ready, Lin and Moore, Julian and Japhet, began moving, steady and practiced. They'd watched each other's backs all the way across Egypt and Libya. Marching into enemy territory together was second nature to them.

The Colonel fell in behind Moore. The Utahn was the only member of their small squad not soaked in sweat. Even Africa seemed balmy compared to the American high desert.

They tromped the rest of the way across the abandoned pitch and left through the visiting team's tunnel. Little monkeys chittered and ran at the sight of them. They emerged on the far side and slunk between ticket booths and into an empty park. Statues of colonial governors glared down at them as they passed.

They stopped at the edge of the park to check Teru's readings. A thorny hedge wall hid them from the snipers six stories above.

“Stronger, sir,” she confirmed.

“We still have time, then,” the Colonel whispered.

“J., J., Edgard, our priority will be security and pack-muling. Doctor Abebe, Teru, you will identify vital intel, items, and personnel for us. Once our way is clear, begin picking out what we need to take.”

“And for what we cannot carry,” Abebe said, holding up his camera.

“That's what these are for, too,” Moore added, jangling his bandolier of thermite grenades.

“Indeed,” the Colonel said. He looked over his squad: Neff, Lin, Teru, Moore, Doctor Abebe. They were ready. “Edgard will eliminate the snipers, then we will rush the door.”

All of them gave some nod or confirmation except for Teru. Her eyes were bouncing with the oscilloscope's readings.

“What are you seeing?” Lin asked.

“The signals just dropped,” Teru said. She stood and waved the oscilloscope around, trying to find them again. “They are moving away... Wait, what is happening?”

“Snipers!” Neff shouted. The lights on Teru's device all turned bright red and the bouncing line on it screen spiked.

“Down!” Lin shouted. He lunged and shoved Teru to the ground. The air cracked around him, blindingly bright. The officials ducked away from the searing flash.

“Merde!” Neff swore. He snatched up his rifle and ran to find a new angle on the shooters above. The Colonel's eyesight recovered quickly. Julian Lin was gone. The spot he had been standing on was a steaming scorch. Beyond, the grass was burning, save for a green silhouette of his body.

Teru screamed in Amharic and fired her shotgun. Buckshot peppered the high window, forcing the snipers back. They tossed their rifle over the sill. It clattered to the ground in front of the main door. Its barrel was glowing orange.

“Jesus,” Moore whispered. He opened fire with his Thompson as SIM soldiers began pouring out of the building's doors. The Colonel and Abebe joined in his barrage, though they were quickly forced back as the Italians advanced heedless of the lead being slung at them.

“They must he armored!” Moore realized.

“I have just the thing,” the Colonel said. He holstered his gold-inlaid revolver and pulled one of his two others, this one encrusted with rubies. Its muzzle flashed crimson and magnesium flashes burst against the advancing soldiers. They stumbled back, swatting at the roiling flames erupting from their uniforms.

Neff's anti-tank rifle roared, shaking the ground. High above, one of the snipers snapped in half and then blew through the ceiling and out the roof. Concrete, viscera, and sunlight pelted the surviving spotter.

“Edgard!” the Colonel called. Neff turned his attention downward. The advancing SIM men had put out the flames. Beneath their tattered clothing, their skin was knobby and plated, like yellow and brown bone had sprouted from it. The officials' bullets skipped off its surface. Neff's would not. He racked and aimed, then pulled the trigger.

One of the bulletproof soldiers lifted off the ground like he'd been hooked by a fisherman. He tumbled through the air, corkscrews of sparkling red flowing out of him, then smacked into the ground and skidded. When he came to rest, he didn't move again.

The SIM men stopped and concentrated their fire on Neff, who rolled away and took cover behind a glowering granite colonizer.

“Up top!” Moore shouted. He braced himself and fired up at the building. The remaining sniper jerked and tipped over. He fell the six stories to the ground, landing on his back. His rifle fired on impact, shooting a lightning bolt upward, white hot and jagged like a tear in the sky.

“That's what they're shooting?” Moore stammered. The dead man's rifle was glowing so hot that the air around it shimmered. The SIM soldiers recovered quickly and continued their advance.

“Edgard!” the Colonel shouted. He was pinned behind the hedge's knotted roots at it was being rapidly pruned around him. He twisted around to find the Frenchman in a similar circumstance, though with blood running down his arm. The Colonel took a deep breath, then unholstered his third pistol, a Webley Mk.IV, the same model as his others. Instead of gold filigree or inset jewels, this one was marred and rusted, its grips cracked. He held it in both hands, then whispered: “Lord in Heaven, forgive me.”

He laid himself out then rolled to his right. When he stopped flat on his belly, he aimed down the sights at the monstrous troopers, then fired. The recoil ripped the revolver from his hands and sent it flying past his head. The effect on his targets was titanic.

The blast that issued forth from Colonel Halistone pistol swept away hanging smoke, dust, and sound. The concussion from the passing bullet knocked those close to its path aside like a contingent of rugby scrummers. Those few unfortunates with whom it intersected were erased from existence. The impact evaporated them: armor, clothes, weapons, and flesh alike. The macabre mist caught flame and crackled blue before it touched the ground. The dazed, thrown SIM men cowered away from the pyrotechnics.

The Colonel's empty hands shook. The blast rang up and down his arms. Sound and air slowly drifted back. The cries of wounded SIM men filtered back into his battered eardrums.

“What was that?” Abebe gasped. Heat and flaked ash washed over them.

“A Baltás bullet,” the Colonel said. “And it is the only one I have, so we had best take advantage of it.”

Abebe spoke Greek, he'd know the word, though he wouldn't understand its meaning. The bulletsmith who'd crafted them was long dead, and the Colonel would take their shameful secrets to his grave. After that shot, there were only three Baltás bullets left in the world, all locked in the Halistone family vault beneath Calparock Manor. This desperate shot would have to suffice.

Moore and Neff charged ahead, with Teru and Abebe covering them. The Colonel looked back at the scorch mark that had been Julian Lin. Lin had survived the trenches, he'd survived the chain gangs of South Africa, he'd survived the invasion of Manchuria. He had not survived the Colonel's command.

Perhaps if he'd used the Baltás round earlier, Lin might still be alive. Or if he had brought another official. Or if he had known what terrible weapons the Italians had there. He drew his gold-inlaid pistol. It wavered in his grip.

“Colonel!” Neff shouted. He snapped out of whatever that was. Neff kicked the rifle out of a groaning SIM soldier's hands. Teru swapped out her buckshot shells for solid slugs, then shot a crawling soldier. His ingrown armor crumpled. The Colonel ran over.

The groaning commando laid out at Neff's feet was segmented like an insect, with overlapping brownish-yellow plates growing on, or through, his skin. Where bullets had hit him, it chipped like a tooth. Where it had cracked, it oozed blood. He picked up a sliver and slipped it into his breast pocket.

“What is that material?” the Colonel wondered.

“That is not what I am worried about, Colonel,” Abebe said. He was standing near the facility's front door, peering inside.

“More?” Neff asked.

“No, but that bullet, it...” he didn't know exactly how to describe what had happened. They could see daylight through the hole. The Baltás had passed through the entire concrete structure. Huge fissures spread from the impact site and webbed the whole building, foundations to roof. It would fall, there was no question.

“Our timeline has accelerated,” the Colonel said. “Find and take what looks important, then we go. There is a full garrison here, even beyond the SIM.”

He stepped up to the crumbling entrance. Concrete dust fell like snow. He could hear distant yelling, but no one else was coming to defend the place.

“J. and J., inside, on the double!” he ordered. He realized when he'd said the instant the words left his mouth.

“Sir,” Moore said quietly, “ Lin is...”

The Colonel didn't want him to finish that sentence.

“With Edgard then! Start clearing rooms, while the building remains standing,” he barked. “We will be on your heels.”

“Wait, Colonel!” Teru called out.

“What now?” he snapped.

“To the west!” Neff yelled. “Coming in low!”

Six black planes roared into view, a spearhead of P-51 Mustangs. They were coming in just over the stadium, barely ten meters above the nosebleeds. There was nowhere else they could be going. The Colonel ducked behind the cracked doorframe, putting six inches of concrete between himself and the incoming fighters. The other officials dashed in behind him.

“Take cover!” the Colonel ordered. Each plane had six heavy guns in its wings. All thirty-six opened up at once. The shattered building shuddered under the barrage.

“This place is going to come down on our heads,” Neff yelled. The raining dust had become gravel plinking off their helmets and shoulders. It was only a matter of time before it was whole slabs.

The squadron rushed low overhead, pulling up at the last instant to miss the roof by what seemed like inches.

“They'll come back around,” Moore gasped, coughing on the hanging dust. The Colonel had the exact same thought.

“We are aborting the mission,” the Colonel declared. “Our lives are not worth whatever we may find in here.”

“But Lin...” Abebe said.

“I have a sample from those men out there, and we shall secure the rifle the snipers used,” the Colonel said. “Two examples of as-yet unknown SIM technologies. Their cataloging shall saves countless lives.”

The officials looked at each other. The Colonel smacked the doorframe with his sheathed sword, snapping them out of it.

“We will have time for mourning and analysis later, and assigning blame,” he shouted. “Now, we run. Teru, grab that rifle. Japhet, Edgard, cover us.”

The officials dashed from the collapsing doorway. They leaped over the fallen SIM troopers and dashed for the park and its concealing hedges and statues. Teru stooped to grab the sniper rifle. She yelped and dropped it. Its barrel was still sizzling hot. She kicked it aside and snatched a bullet clip from the dead man's belt, then chased down the rest of the squad. Ababe thought fast and grabbed one of the SIM soldiers' Carcano rifles.

They were under cover by the time the Mustangs had wheeled around. Their engines howled and thrummed, and then their guns screamed. The broken building shook and finally gave way. It collapsed floor by floor, each level dropping on the one below until whatever was left inside was pancaked between. Any SIM troopers and scientists were left inside died instantly.

The planes split out of their formation and wheeled around, trying to get the best approach angle on anyone trying to escape the collapsing building.

“Move, move, move!” the Colonel shouted. The officials bolted, ducking between statues and topiary. They jumped the fence and entered the open stadium. Their motorbikes were waiting on the other side, and the cover of the Entoto mountains beyond that.

The first plane found them when they were halfway across the pitch. Explosive bullets burst in the thick grass all around them. The officials crouched low but kept moving. The other Mustangs zeroed in.

“Edgard!” the Colonel shouted. Neff dialed in on the next plane and fired. His aim was dead on. The tank-killing round punched through the closest plane's engine like it was made of wet clay. Pistons and pilot alike burst out of the tail. The plane collapsed around itself and slammed into the backside of the visitors' stands. A fireball rose high over the officials.

The other planes pulled back, withdrawing from the chase when they remembered that foxes have teeth, too.

“Do not tarry,” the Colonel warned. They bolted through the home team tunnel and emerged on the far side. The mountains dominated their view. They were dry and rocky, but the twisting eastern approach was thickly forested. It would be the perfect place to lose aerial pursuers.

The motorbikes were beneath a camo net, concealing them along a side road half-a-kilometer past the stadium. The officials mounted up quickly. They gunned it, with Moore lingering just long enough to rig a hand grenade to Lin's bike.

The road to the mountains was pitted and winding, but they made good time, and were already deep into the forest when the black Mustangs caught up to them.

The Colonel had to yell over his howling motorcycle to be heard:

“Bandits at our six!” He raised his ruby-studded revolver and fired away. The other officials did the same. Lead filled the air.

The lead Mustang opened up. Its guns pocked the ground, bursts of dirt and stone chasing down the slowest bike. Moore swerved side to side, ducking as low in the seat as he could get. He laid his Thompson over his shoulder and fired, emptying the magazine. The plane gunned its engine and overtook them, making room for the next one in line. The whole squadron was coming up on them.

Neff struggled with his rifle. It was over five feet long and weighed sixty pounds loaded. It would be impossible to aim on the move. The next plane was gaining.

“Ifa!” Teru shouted. The doctor looked back. She was waving the sniper's clip in one hand. Abebe understood. He throttled down so she could pull up next to him and he handed her the Carcano he'd taken. She rack one of the bullets into its breach and squeezed her brake, giving her some space as Abebe, Neff, and Moore whipped past.

“Don't!” the Colonel yelled, but it was too late.

Teru twisted around in her seat, leveled the Carcano, and fired. The sound was like the world breaking at its seams. The bright blue sky went dark for an instant. A line of light erupted forth from the barrel, jagging side to side before it clipped the incoming fighter's wing. The plane rolled to the right and the wing fell to the left. The fuselage slammed into the ground, sending fire and trees flying into the air.

The rifle kicked like a race horse. Its barrel immediately bulged and went red hot. The recoil threw Teru off her seat, and she and the bike went rolling through the gravel. The ruined Carcano bounced and settled in a bush, setting it aflame on contact.

The Colonel twisted his brake and jerked the handlebars to the side. His bike fought him, but it still turned ninety degrees as it skidded to a stop.

“Get up,” he whispered. He raised his pistol, settling his sights on the third plane in the line. A well-placed shot would sink an incendiary round through the windscreen and into the pilot's eye. He squeezed the trigger. The hammer fell but the pistol stayed silent. He'd emptied the cylinder.

Neff nearly flipped off the front of his bike as he tried to brake and bring his rifle to bear, but he wasn't fast enough.

The Mustang opened fire. Its explosive rounds advanced step-by-step up the road. Teru didn't have the strength to avoid them. They found her helpless, and she died instantly.

“My God,” Abebe whispered. Tears rolled down his face.

The plane pulled up, waggling it wings to mock the stunned officials. Skeletal designs adorned them, boney bird's wings with ribbing where the feathers would have been. The Colonel committed them to memory.

“Edgard,” he snarled. Neff needed no further instruction. He raised his anti-tank rifle and fired, racked it, fired again. He continued until his magazine ran dry. The next fighter veered away. The last saw its engine implode. The pilot bailed out, only to be sniped out of mid-air like a clay pigeon. His remains splashed across the treetops. The remaining planes scattered.

Neff reloaded. He watched to make sure none of them were wheeling around for another pass. He didn’t lower the rifle until they were out of sight.

Neff normally would have smiled; shooting planes out of the air was just the kind of challenge he enjoyed. Not this time. Moore drove back to Teru's side. He said something none of the rest could hear, then picked her up and draped her over his lap. He drove back to where everyone else was waiting. They nodded to him with reverence. Neff threw his leg back over his bike and hit the throttle. Abebe followed suit and rode on. They'd be safe behind the advancing British lines soon enough.

The Colonel covered their rear, making sure his officials never left his sight.

He'd remember Lin and Teru, like he remembered them all, even going back to the last war.

He knew in his marrow that he had saved lives, but he could not say how many. Those numbers weren't real, they were abstracts, estimates. What was real was the men and women who'd died under his direction. The enemy soldiers were countless. Hundreds, if not thousands by his order, dozens more by his hand. He had been a killer for most of his life by then. He could not say how many lives he'd ended. But of his own people lost under his command? Officials First Class Julian Lin and Teru Otello made ninety-four.

As much as he blamed himself for those deaths and remembered them all, he knew he did not carry that blame alone. Men dropped those bombs, pulled those triggers, pressed those buttons, and dragged those knives. He would never forget them, either.

He would hunt down the pilots of those Mustangs and he would turn their lives inside out. They would be made to understand what they had done, and who they had done it to.

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Copyright © 2023 Daniel Baldwin. All rights reserved.

Written and edited by Daniel Baldwin. Art by Bruce Conners.